Cold is the city
Unnamed, disappeared am I in its midst
In the face of everpresent isolation
Only found a sunset where you do not exist

Light and noise surround me
Stabbed — sickly fire rushes through my veins
One thousand feet pound the concrete
Malevolence can’t see me just the same

Darkness descends on me at every corner
Cold penetrates my skin right through to bone
No choice, I must embrace the devil
No choice, for his, is all I own

Distant now the place and time
Held in your still and warm embrace
A time when you and I were unified
Little memory now, only vacant stares, a trace

Cold is the city, I lurk below your line of sight
I wonder if you are just like me
Despair, my constant companion
Underneath the busy layer I silently decree

Cold city, you are all that’s left to me
As blue lights flash the early mourning call
Life leaves the eyes of perhaps a friend, another exit
Another one from disgrace alone does fall

Sadness, yet a somewhat morbid beauty in his passing
Little option now but to see out the road I chose
Jouissance in every hour of my existence
Jouissance, in fact, is all I’ve left to lose

Am I a blessed generate of the city?
Am I a blessed member of this cold-hearted place?
A blessed cornerstone of the inner city?
A blessed member of an inhuman race?

Darkened hearts take up your corners of the city
Celebrate the life and death of those lost, forlorn
For nothing grants you elevation from the city
Accept this now, I must, for the sake of Gods unborn

© Larry G. Maguire 2019

This started life as a short and sweet Chat message on my phone that subsequently disappeared into oblivion upon switching apps to do a spell check. And so, having allowed my initial anguish at the loss of my poetic prose to subside, I see that I now have gained the opportunity to expand upon the initial thought.

The Pint.

If you’re Irish, and in particular, male of a given vintage, then you know of the importance of a good pint. The above images are representative of that importance. It is one passed down from father to son, generation to generation, and it is one I fear is dying as our men of Eireann become de-masculated by what is right and proper in this new world and global culture.

On a Sunday morning as a boy, I would accompany my father to the graveyard and later to a low table in the local, sampling the head of fresh pints. Bitter like coffee, smooth like cream, dark and complex as the souls of men who drank it warm from glass bottles in fields. My mother skulled a bottle of the black stuff most days when she was expecting me. That was normative advice for pregnant women of her day. There was even a time in Ireland when on a visit to the blood bank, you would be afforded a bottle of black while recovering. It was the iron you see.

Now, don’t get all serious on me here…the dangers of alcohol and all that. I know all about them, intimately, and that’s not for this conversation. Whether we like it or not, The Pint is significant in what it represents for certain people of this island and the marketers of Irish tourism know this well. There is significance in the importance to which we attach a good pint - it is culturally relevant and an embedded aspect of our identity. Some women share this, but not many, and fewer still in the millennial generation. To know a good pint is to be embedded in the tradition. It is like a master carpenter knows his wood or a mason who knows his stone. To know a good pint is to know God himself.

It is an acquired taste not only of the tongue, one should you wish to sample and appreciate to its full extent, will require a lot of you. You must immerse yourself in the culture of my people for a long period until such time as you develop a natural grá for the sup. Until you hear yourself utter, “Jesus, I’d murder a pint” you know little of the true meaning of The Pint. Until you can say that with conviction, you know nothing of the pint. Equipped with this inside knowledge and information, all one must do on entering the bar, is to raise a finger, nod at the bar keep and say, “pint”. That will do. If he replies, “pint of what?”, turn and walk out for he himself surely does not know The Pint and his service will likely disappoint.

Presentation + taste is everything. I can’t tell you exactly why a good pint is a good pint, but you’ll learn to know it when you get one. There are things that need to be right, however. There are signs you’re in a fine establishment and the time is right.

• Anticipation - There must be the grá on you.

• Atmosphere - It must be busy, but not too busy. A certain temperance is required in order to savour The Pint.

• Knowledge, Skill, & Experience - The older the gentleman pulling the pint, usually the better although this is not a strict prerequisite. Women and younger men are more than capable of pulling good pints.

• Flow - Not psychological Flow, although that might help, but flow on the lines. A key ingredient of a good pint is the freshness of the keg (my mate Ray from Guinness told me this).

• A Clean Glass - Squeaky clean. Detergent ruins the pint.

• Patience (Bar keep) - The job shouldn’t be rushed, but can’t be too slow either.

• A Good Head - The pint must be pulled with care, creating good domeage without overfilling. You’ll know a good head because it sticks to the inside of the glass.

• Patience (Drinker) - You must wait until it’s just right, but not too long, then murder it.

In the sharing of The Pint, there is friendship, comradery and storytelling. There is slaggin’, the craic, and banter. Too many pints, however, and there’ll be some suffering to be done the next day. It’s usually worth it though.

Last word to Guinness (Diageo)…stop fucking with the brand and the product. What is perfect cannot be improved.

Do you take a pint yourself?

Where To Get A Good Pint in Dublin (to name a few)

• The Gravediggers

• The Long Hall

• Mulligan’s Poolbeg St.

• Waslh’s Stoneybatter

• Bowe’s

• Kehoe’s

• Ryan’s Parkgate St.

• The Cobblestone

• The Palace

I recently commenced working with a group of long-term unemployed in Dublin, all men. These guys have had a tough life, some tougher than others, and they're trying to turn their lives around and get into stable work. My role is to coach them toward that. Coaching is not about handing someone a solution but rather helping them find the solution themselves. Often we fail to realise that the resources required are not outside us in some book, course, or inspirational speech. Instead, they are very close to home and all it takes is for someone else to point it out.

So we're working away, discussing work prospects, what their ideal job would look like, and how they might go about achieving it. It's a tough ask and there are many hurdles, not least the impact of their private lives and all the complexity of that.

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As Russian troops are tearing apart Kyiv, a particular narrative seems to have taken hold in the western media and popular social media. A simplistic narrative suggests Russia is the bad guy, the US and Europe are the good guys, and Ukraine is the innocent sovereign nation under attack from a vicious and narcissistic dictator. This might be so from ten thousand feet up, and taking this high-level view, few with a humanistic bone in their body will argue in favour of Russia’s move. However, the US and their allies are in no position to take the moral high ground given the nature of their involvement in conflict around the world in the last one hundred years. Their interest in the welfare of human beings is reserved for those who occupy countries of geopolitical and corporate interest. Everyone else can fuck off.

That aside, a few minutes spent researching Ukraine’s recent political and social history will show that the situation in the eastern European country is not as clear-cut as the media would like us to believe. There have been decades of unrest in Ukraine, and it appears to amount to a division in cultural identity for the people. As democracy and a progressive ideology move steadily east, it has come up against an immovable force. Western powers understand that the situation is delicate. Despite how one feels about Vladimir Putin, if you know he and his cronies are violent and dangerous, you surely don’t provoke them by courting a state of strategic and nationalistic importance to them. According to US political scientist and international relations expert John Mearsheimer, this is precisely what the US and their allies have done.

In the minds and motivations of the power-hungry, the lives of ordinary people matter little despite their skill in painting up the facts. And be under no illusions, western media are very good at giving us what we want to hear. In fact, the only time human life matters to these people is when they need popular support for their pursuit. Where the prize is power and control, money and resources are valued higher than national sovereignty and the lives of people. Russia, China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and many other global power centres will find a reason to attack a sovereign nation where their interests are threatened to sufficient extents. As such, for the corporate-political-financial elites of the US, UK, and EU to take the moral high ground on Ukraine makes me nauseous. And be sure, nationality has little to do with things here. Instead, it is a case of democracy used as a tool for globalisation and manipulation of markets. Nationality is merely a means to rally the support of ordinary people.

Human beings, the majority of us anyway, like to accept simple answers to complex issues. Our brains are energy-hungry—the hungriest and most efficient organ in our body, in fact. So we are primed to accept stories that appear to match our concepts and ideas of the world. Where narratives are easily processed, and the wave of popular opinion is strong, we are swept along with hardly a need to question. We believe the world is concrete, or at least should be. We want certainty and stability, and in the face of dramatic conditions, we just want a simple answer and the media are poised to provide it.

This aside, and with my amateur grasp of the situation, I feel Putin’s aggressive move will backfire. Russia seems to have isolated itself from a substantial portion of the corporate and financial world. And from what I have read, there appears to be a significant degree of unrest amongst ordinary Russians. If the conflict continues, it may be only a matter of time before they turn against their government, especially given the level of sanctions now in place.

As I mentioned, identity is a significant driver of things in this fight for Ukraine. It is the butting of heads of two forces of thought, ideology, identity, power and control. One side will win. I just hope that the fight will be as short as possible for the sake of the Ukrainian people. But be sure that to fight is our nature—at least one half of it—and it occurs everywhere in life to varying degrees. We are capable of creating such wonderful things, of supporting and helping one another. But equally, we are capable of destroying ourselves…the pursuit of power and control is humanity’s great sickness and will be our downfall.

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I’ve written before on the insanity of our species. In fact, you might say that most subjects upon which I write for Sunday Letters lean towards the dysfunctional aspects of human behaviour. It’s hard to ignore after all. Capitalism runs riot over the planet in spite of lofty and apparently admirable corporate initiatives to act responsibly. If you followed the recent essays in the Leadership series, you would have read many examples of how these initiatives are merely a smokescreen for the true corporate aim. It is the manifestation in our society of a deep psychological disturbance, and although one might argue that technological innovation has allowed human beings to enjoy a more comfortable way of life than our grandparents, for example, the global humanitarian trade-off seems hardly worth it. According to economic anthropologist, Jason Hickel, millions of people in the global south in effect pay for our comfort1. And it is not merely a phenomenon that came about in error or oversight of policymakers, an unfortunate unintended by-product of globalisation. It may in fact be the product of a purposeful, yet dangerous political and philosophical ideology.

In this week’s Sunday Letters, I’m sharing an article I read recently on the concept of Longtermism; the idea that our actions today affect the very long-term future of the universe—thousands, millions, billions, and even trillions of years from now2. When you read the openly available literature on longtermism, it may seem hard to argue with its thesis, at least at first hand. However, when we dig into the material we find a certain sinister tone to the longtermist view. It begins to take on tones of Machiavellianism and even psychopathy. Phil Torres writes in a recent article for Aeon magazine, that this worldview is quite possibly the most dangerous secular belief system in the world today. Torres suggests that the initial thing we should notice about Longtermism is that it does not, as the term may suggest, promote ‘caring for the long-term future of the planet’ or ‘valuing the wellbeing of humanity’. It apparently goes way beyond this. At its core is the simple, yet flawed ideology of survival of the fittest — ends justify means.

Torres writes;

[According to the Longtermist ideology] humanity has a ‘potential’ of its own, one that transcends the potentials of each individual person, and failing to realise this potential would be extremely bad—indeed, as we will see, a moral catastrophe of literally cosmic proportions. This is the central dogma of longtermism: nothing matters more, ethically speaking, than fulfilling our potential as a species of ‘Earth-originating intelligent life’. It matters so much that longtermists have even coined the scary-sounding term ‘existential risk’ for any possibility of our potential being destroyed, and ‘existential catastrophe’ for any event that actually destroys this potential.

Why do I think this ideology is so dangerous? The short answer is that elevating the fulfilment of humanity’s supposed potential above all else could nontrivially increase the probability that actual people—those alive today and in the near future—suffer extreme harms, even death. Consider that, as I noted elsewhere, the longtermist ideology inclines its adherents to take an insouciant attitude towards climate change. Why? Because even if climate change causes island nations to disappear, triggers mass migrations and kills millions of people, it probably isn’t going to compromise our long-term potential over the coming trillions of years. If one takes a cosmic view of the situation, even a climate catastrophe that cuts the human population by 75 per cent for the next two millennia will, in the grand scheme of things, be nothing more than a small blip – the equivalent of a 90-year-old man having stubbed his toe when he was two.

The bottom line of Torres’ argument is that the Longtermist ideology suggests that efforts today, not only on earth but beyond and into the outer regions of our galaxy, should stop at little to ensure humanity’s long term future success. Moral and ethical standards can be shelved once we project ends to some future time and space. If a few hundred thousand, or even millions of people in the global south, die to ensure the survival of the global north—those more technologically advanced and innovative—then so be it. Torres argues that Longtermism is merely utilitarianism under another name. It is, in my view, bad-bastardry of the highest order. It is elitist and exclusionary. It is a rationalisation of the most abhorrent actions against minorities and the continued raping and pillaging of the planet for commercial ends.

Here is the article available in Aeon Magazine. You should read and make up your own mind.